Slaughterhouse: anyone built one?

Tonight.

BTW, my dog has no nose!

How does he smell?

Offal!!!!

This is mine made from cardboard.

These urban kids are brought up too squeamish....as a kid on my grandfather's farm,

there was hog-killing time to generate hams and bacon for the smokehouse, and my

grandmother would grab a chicken out of the henhouse and wring its neck.   It would magically appear in the center of the Sunday dinner table a few hours later.  My mother thought that was too messy and would shoot them in the head with one of my dad's .22's while they were blythely pecking around the chickenyard.  There was only a facility in my hometown called a "lockerplant" that I think stored meat and kept it

cold or frozen for owners.  It closed a long time ago as suburbia overtook the area.  It had no rail service.  I would like to see prototype photos of a small slaughterhouse/meat packer, as a destination for stock cars from stock pens.

My "Kurt Vonnegut's SLAUGHTERHOUSE #5" started out as an ERTL Farm Country SALE BARN HOUSE SET #4326. I use a Lionel cattle car wthe platform to bring in the livestock. A combination of a Lionel Ice Block Depot with a Korber Union Ice Company are for iceing the reefers. K-line made some detailed reefers with sides of beef hanging on their racks.

Mine is not a detailed architectural model of a prototype. It is a representative depiction. I have never seen the Chicago stockyards except in movies; but I did visit the Stockyards in Texas once while on a business trip. The TV educational program MODERN MARVELS has presented several detailed documentaries on the processing of foods including meat products.

Paul Goodness

I did a search for photos of a small slaughterhouse on the net, and did not find any,

and found out that some packing companies had lobbied photographing them illegal

due to do-gooder harassment.  That would seem unconstitutional, but I will continue

the search, going to "meat packers", as this thead has reminded me that those cows

in the pens need a destination.

Mom used to use a hatchet and then toss the body under a bushel basket and sit on it until everything settled down,

mwb:  My grandmother would just let it run headless, flop, and flap all over the

chickenyard until it stopped.  Not a scene for the queasy.

After we moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia, that tended to upset the delicate sensibilities of some of our neighbors; hence the bushel basket technique.

Not on my layout.  MEAT IS MURDER.  But everyone is free model and to eat whatever they choose. My choice is not to eat anything that has eyes.

Guys,

If you really wanted to be freaky you could do a science fiction version Kurt Vonegut style and model Slaughter House 5! and slaughter aliens!

It would be popular at Halloween! And it could go with the aliens and flying saucers. Don't little green men have green blood? this would be more appetizing than seeing red blood on the layout...... Just sayin' to each his own.

Mike Maurice

No potatoes for you!

When I was growing up, there was a tiny neighborhood slaughterhouse just up the street. They would shoot the cattle with a .22 rifle. The pigs, they would hang from hooks and slit their throats with a knife. In the summer, the doors were always open. My friends and I thought this was great entertainment. 

As for physical layout, the facility was divided into four quadrants. In one corner was a small corral used to hold live animals. Adjacent to it was a sparse open room with an overhead trolly holding sliding meat hooks (this is where the action was). The third section was a closed area that we couldn't get into--I assume it was where the meat was dressed.  The final corner was a small retail storefront. We got all of our meats there.  I imagine it was pretty fresh.   This would make a great model in a small space.  I'll have to add it to the list.

Or black-eyed peas. ( Though I can't eat those, eyes or not).

And I agree, I wouldn't eat meat that has eyes.

"So you're relinquishing your position as the apex predator on the planet?"

"You do realize we'd chow down on you in an instant, eyes or no eyes?"

Jerry

I don't think Hyenas are actually predators, they're more like four legged, hairy vultures.

Goat's head soup, anyone?

Actually hyenas are lions biggest competitors on the African Plains. They have a reputation for being bruisers and scavengers but they are bona fide predators. All predators will scavenge or steal a meal if they can but spotted hyenas kill more than 90% of the food they eat and have been known to drive lions off of their kills.

Jerry

Well, in nature there are herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores.  Human beings are

naturally omnivores, which has helped them survive in a world once populated with

larger predators, and to become as successful as they are.  We CAN eat just about

anything, although I certainly draw the line at turning over rotten logs looking for

grubs, although maybe some of my very distant ancestors were probably less picky.

(but then, I have never been lost in a jungle, either)

FYI: Humans are not apex predators.Yes, we are the dominant species on the planet, but not apex predators like lions and tigers as pictured above.

"In the global food web, we discover that humans are similar to anchovy or pigs and cannot be considered apex predators,"

http://news.mongabay.com/2013/...-trophic-levels.html

I know people like to imagine humans as strong robust creatures like an apex predator... But in reality we are apex consumers.

I hate to disagree but we are the apex predator on the planet. We may not have the physical strength to overpower the other animals but we have a complex brain and are capable of creating tools that enables us to be the apex predator. You're confusing people with the human species

From Wikipedia:

Apex predators (also known as alpha, super, top or top-level predators) are predators withfew to no predators of their own, residing at the top of their food chain.^[1] Zoologists define predation as the killing and consumption of another organism (which generally excludes parasites and most bacteria).^[2] In this context, "apex predator" is usually defined in terms of trophic dynamics. Apex predator species occupy the highest trophic level(s) and have a crucial role in maintaining the health of their ecosystems. One study of marine food webs defined apex predators as greater than trophic level four.^[3] The apex predator concept is commonly applied in wildlife management, conservation, and ecotourism.

Food chains are often far shorter on land, with the top of the food chain limited to the third trophic level, as where such predators as the big cats, crocodilians, hyenas, wolves, or giant constrictor snakes prey upon large herbivores. Apex predators do not need to be hypercarnivores. For example, grizzly bears and humans^[4] are each apex predators and are omnivores.

The human, with its high intelligence and systematic use of tools such as hunting weapons (i.e. rifles, falcons, and hunting dogs in contemporary history), is the world's most successful apex predator. In much (if not all) of the world, humans constitute the top of the food chain.^[19]

Stephen Hawkings once noted that the one thing all of the predators on earth have in common (wolves, killer whales, sharks, big cats, hyenas, bears, humans, chimps, etc.&nbsp have in common is that we are all intelligent creatures capable thinking, reasoning, remembering, coordinating and planning and he thinks that also applies out there in the galaxy

Kind of makes you not want to meet up with an alien civilization!

Jerry